WKBT-DT (channel 8) is a

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ea ...

licensed to

La Crosse, Wisconsin La Crosse is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of La Crosse County. Positioned alongside the Mississippi River, La Crosse is the largest city on Wisconsin's western border. La Crosse's population as of the 2020 census wa ...

, United States, serving the La Crosse– Eau Claire market as an affiliate of

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

and

MyNetworkTV MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...

. Owned by

Morgan Murphy Media The Evening Telegram Company, d/b/a Morgan Murphy Media, is an American television and radio company based out of Madison, Wisconsin. The company is named for publisher Morgan Murphy, who expanded the business after he took over from his grandfathe ...

, the station maintains studios on South 6th Street in downtown La Crosse, and its transmitter is located on Silver Creek Road in Galesville, Wisconsin.

History

WKBT signed-on August 8, 1954, as a sister station to WKBH radio (AM 1410, now WIZM). In the

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally ass ...

, the "T" for "television" replaced the "H" to differentiate the stations. It originally carried programming from all four major networks (CBS,

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

, ABC, and DuMont) but has always been a primary CBS affiliate. It lost DuMont after that network shut down in 1956 and lost NBC in 1958 after La Crosse and Eau Claire were collapsed into a single market. WKBT then shared ABC with NBC affiliate WEAU-TV (channel 13, based in Eau Claire) until

WXOW WXOW (channel 19) is a television station in La Crosse, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Allen Media Broadcasting. The station's studios and transmitter are located on County Highway 25 in La Crescent, Minnesota. WQOW ...

(channel 19) signed-on from La Crosse in 1970. On April 16, 1965, during the worst of the famous 1965 flood, the downtown La Crosse building that housed both WKBT and WKBH burned to the ground; WKBT would rebuild its current building on the same site. WKBT was sold to Harold F. Gross, a businessman from

Lansing, Michigan Lansing () is the capital of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is mostly in Ingham County, although portions of the city extend west into Eaton County and north into Clinton County. The 2020 census placed the city's population at 112,644, makin ...

in 1970, who owned WJIM-AM- FM- TV in that city. Gross Telecasting sold both stations to Backe Communications in 1984, following a licensing dispute involving WJIM-TV (which changed its call letters to WLNS-TV). Backe sold both stations to

Young Broadcasting Young Broadcasting, LLC was an American media company that owned or operated 12 television stations in 10 markets with a total U.S. television household coverage of 5.9%. The company was formerly known as Young Broadcasting Inc. and was the outgr ...

in 1986. In March 2000, Young sold WKBT to current owner Morgan Murphy Media (ironically, the founding original owner of WEAU-TV from 1953 to 1962). Throughout its history, WKBT's news operation has tended to favor their news coverage on their home city of La Crosse,

Winona, Minnesota Winona is a city in and the county seat of Winona County, Minnesota, Winona County, in the U.S. state, state of Minnesota. Located in bluff country on the Mississippi River, its most noticeable physical landmark is Sugar Loaf (Winona, Minnesota ...

, and the

Coulee Region The Driftless Area, a topographical and cultural region in the American Midwest, comprises southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and the extreme northwestern corner of Illinois. Never covered by ice during the last ...

, with a secondary emphasis on Eau Claire and the

Chippewa Valley The Chippewa Valley is a valley in Wisconsin, US. History The valley was first inhabited by the Ojibwe and colonized by German and Scandinavian immigrants. The region also has a large Hmong community. While the term "Chippewa Valley" technica ...

, ceding to WEAU's geographical strength overall in Eau Claire. However, WKBT's weather coverage is balanced equally to cover the entire market. WKBT's transmitter, in Galesville, is located about north of the channel 8 studios in order to provide a clear signal to the entire market. If put up next to Chicago's

Willis Tower The Willis Tower (originally the Sears Tower) is a 108- story, skyscraper in the Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, United States. Designed by architect Bruce Graham and engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM ...

(formerly known as the

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

Tower), the WKBT transmitter would surpass the upper roof and fall just about short of the highest antenna on top. On January 30, 2006, WKBT signed-on a new second

digital subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compres ...

to serve as the market's UPN affiliate. Class A station KQEG-CA had previously dropped its affiliation with the network at the end of the previous week. As a result of UPN and

The WB The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. ...

merging Merge, merging, or merger may refer to: Concepts * Merge (traffic), the reduction of the number of lanes on a road * Merge (linguistics), a basic syntactic operation in generative syntax in the Minimalist Program * Merger (politics), the com ...

in September 2006, ABC affiliate WXOW (and its

semi-satellite A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tran ...

WQOW WQOW (channel 18) is a television station in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, United States, serving the Chippewa Valley as an affiliate of ABC. Owned by Allen Media Broadcasting, the station has studios on Friedeck Road in Eau Claire, and its transmitter ...

) gained

The CW ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...

affiliation on digital subchannels. This was a result of their association with The WB through a

cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

-only station ("WBCZ" on channel 15) through

The WB 100+ The WB 100+ Station Group (originally called The WeB from its developmental stages until March 1999) was a national programming service of The WB—owned by the Warner Bros. Entertainment division of Time Warner, the Tribune Company, and group fo ...

. Meanwhile, WKBT-DT2 joined the other new broadcast network, MyNetworkTV.

Programming

Syndicated programming on WKBT includes ''

Entertainment Tonight ''Entertainment Tonight'' (or simply ''ET'') is an American first-run syndicated news broadcasting newsmagazine program that is distributed by CBS Media Ventures throughout the United States and owned by Paramount Streaming. ET also airs in Aus ...

'', ''

The Jennifer Hudson Show ''The Jennifer Hudson Show'' is an American syndicated daytime talk show. Hosted by singer and actress Jennifer Hudson, the series premiered on September 12, 2022. Production In November 2021, '' Deadline'' reported that Warner Bros. Televis ...

'' and ''

The Drew Barrymore Show ''The Drew Barrymore Show'' (often shortened to ''Drew'') is a first-run syndicated American talk show hosted by actress Drew Barrymore. The show is distributed by CBS Media Ventures and debuted on September 14, 2020. In April 2022, the show w ...

'' among others. WKBT is one of a few CBS affiliates to air

paid programming Paid or PAID may refer to: * ''Paid'' (1930 film), an American film starring Joan Crawford * ''Paid'' (2006 film), a Dutch film *''Personality and Individual Differences'', a journal See also * Paide Paide is a town in Estonia and the ...

on weekday mornings.

News operation

WKBT presently broadcasts 34 hours of local newscasts each week (with six hours each weekday and two hours each on Saturdays and Sundays).

Controversy

In October 2012, WKBT was in the national spotlight when morning news anchor Jennifer Livingston addressed a viewer who criticized her about her weight and issued an on-air commentary about

bullying Bullying is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception (by the bully or by others) of an ...

and being a

role model A role model is a person whose behaviour, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people. The term ''role model'' is credited to sociologist Robert K. Merton, who hypothesized that individuals compare themselves ...

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

: WKBT added digital subchannel 8.2 in January 2006, a channel originally affiliated with UPN before joining

the following September; it launched with only a weekend's notice after

KQEG-CD KQEG-CD (channel 23) is a low-power, Class A television station licensed to La Crescent, Minnesota, United States. It is a translator of La Crosse, Wisconsin–licensed CBS affiliate WKBT-DT (channel 8) which is owned by Morgan Murphy Media. ...

's UPN disaffiliation in the wake of the announcement of the UPN–WB merger into The CW. The station would add a second subchannel, affiliated with Ion in January 2017; a third subchannel, affiliated with

Dabl Dabl () is an American lifestyle-oriented digital multicast television network owned by the CBS Media Ventures subsidiary of Paramount Global. The company's formerly-owned other subchannel network, Decades, through CBS News and Stations was la ...

, signed on in September 2019.

Analog-to-digital conversion

On March 28, 2003, WKBT signed on its digital signal on

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

channel 41. The station has been digital-only since February 17, 2009. In the summer of 2011, WKBT became the first station in the market to air newscasts in 16:9 enhanced definition

widescreen Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratio (image), aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ...

Translators

References

External links

WKBT "News 8"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wkbt-Dt CBS network affiliates Morgan Murphy Media stations MyNetworkTV affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1954 1954 establishments in Wisconsin KBT-DT Ion Television affiliates Dabl affiliates